“We challenged ourselves to reinvent the notebook with what we’ve learned from iPhone and iPad,” CEO Tim Cook said.

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Starting, apparently, with colors. The new MacBook comes in the same colors as the iPhone and iPad: Gray, gold and silver.

This new laptop is a clear break from previous Apple laptops. Instead of Apple’s proprietary MagSafe charger, it has a single USB Type-C port, which delivers video, data and power in one, and a headphone jack. The single port shouldn’t cause too many problems when users want to plug in a device while charging: Apple says the new MacBook should be able to manage nine hours of web browsing on a single charge.

Apple said its MacBook is 24 percent slimmer than the current MacBook Air line. Its length and width dimensions are close to those of the 11-inch MacBook Air. It sports a 12-inch display by slimming the extra space on both sides of the keyboard found on previous MacBooks. That 12-inch screen is a Retina display, sporting a resolution of 2304 x 1440. It’s powered by a 5-watt Intel Core M processor clocked at up to 1.3GHz, which means that the laptop doesn’t need a fan.

Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, speaks during the Apple event in San Francisco on March 9, 2015.

The new MacBook, simply called MacBook, sports a large trackpad using the taptic engine technology Apple is also using for its watches, and an edge-to-edge keyboard with a new mechanism that allows the laptop to be thinner. The taptic engine should enable new forms of touch interfaces, such as the ability to press harder to, say, bring up a Wikipedia entry or fast forward more quickly.

The new MacBook is apparently a new line of notebooks. It “joins” the existing MacBook Air, and MacBook Pros are getting the new upgraded taptic force trackpad as well.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announces the new MacBook during an Apple special event on March 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California.

The colors are good, but isn’t it still a marketing gimmick, whatever happening to adding some touchscreen features, making sure that they don’t market the McB Pro and McB with comparable prices and features at the same time, and ensuring that their apps are actually multi-edge, WYSIWYM tested across cross platform deliverance and visualization? (bit. ly/ 1zOxa3C) – Eamon Walsh, commenting on behalf of IDG and Kony

Big Apple fan, but until they make a touchscreen laptop, I’ll stick with my 2010 MBP. I can often accomplish what I want on my iPhone 6 faster than I can on my MBP or my Dell work craptop; part of that is the apps, part of that is the touchscreen. I just can’t understand why Apple is so behind on this.

LOL! They’ve re-invented the netbook. Complete lack of usable ports, woeful performance, a worse keyboard, worse battery life, and they still ask $1300 for it. Wait, make that $1380 because you’re all but forced to buy that hideously over-priced $80 dongle. $80 for a friggin’ dongle.